


Ravioli

by lesbianettes



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Study, Cooking, Food as a Metaphor for Love, M/M, Malta, Nicky is a petty bitch about pasta, Ravioli as a metaphor for love, Returning to Malta (The Old Guard), Tenderness, cooking together, i love that that's a tag, terms of endearment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:28:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes
Summary: Nicky and Joe cook dinner together in Malta.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 12
Kudos: 237





	Ravioli

It’s not often they have space to themselves- in fact, not often they even want it or ask for it. As much as they value their privacy, especially when it allows them intimacy, they’re well aware how much safer it is to stay with the others. There’s someone to watch their back so they have the opportunity to be tender without worrying about dying in each other’s arms. But tonight, it’s just them, tucked away in the safety of Malta for the next few days as Andy and Nile explore the world. It’s something Andy does every decade or so, just to find out if there’s anything new, and although she just came back from her infinite vacation before Nile joined them (and everything that followed), she took the opportunity to show Nile the beauty and see it all again before her mortality wins over. Normally they would still have Booker, but... it’s best not to dwell. 

It’s just the two of them now, alone in the safety of a home they’ve returned to several times, with Nicky painstakingly laminating pasta dough while Joe prepares a filling more reminiscent of what he had eaten as a child under the rough sun. They don’t typically have time for him to babysit a stew over the course of several hours, or for Nicky to make his own pasta dough and hand roll little ravioli in his sword-calloused palms. 

“I wish we could do this more often,” Nicky says. He folds the dough in to thirds and runs it through the pasta roller again, cranking it by hand because he refuses to use the fancy modern machines. _They can’t make the same texture_ , he said one night, kissing a path across Joe’s shoulders. _It’s a poor excuse for pasta._ And Joe told him he needed to work on his pillow talk, they laughed, and went for another round. “I like cooking with you.”

“We cook together.”

“Not like this.”

Joe tastes his stew and hums satisfactorily. It’ll go well with the creamy broth Nicky has simmering on the other burner, the sauce to make the ravioli thin and smooth. “The dough ready?” He takes the stew from the heat and sets it on the little ceramic plate on the table, one that protects the aged wood from damage. He’s careful not to burn his fingers on it, although he knows how little it would mean, and as Nicky forces the dough into a uniform rectangle, he gets a spoon for the filling. 

“Be careful, my love, it’s hot.”

Nicky touches his arm and makes a hissing sound through his teeth, followed by a bright laugh. It’s the little things, these tiny assurances that after centuries, Nicky still finds him beautiful and someone worthy of flirting with and seducing. There’s no need. Joe can’t imagine spending a moment in the arms of anyone else, anyways. He has Nicky, and that’s enough. 

“Flirt.”

“You love me for it,” Nicky replies, and tilts his head up for a kiss Joe is happy to deliver. 

As he begins to make the delicate little ravioli, carefully crimping their edges in his beautiful hands, Joe sets a pot of water to boil. By the time Nicky is ready, they’ll be perfect little gifts to fill their stomachs and make them warm, and the water will be hot enough to cook the dough into something easily pierced. He scatters salt into the water and watches it sink and dissolve, become warm and then bubble up. They’ll share this meal made by their old hands, feed one raviolo after another into each other’s mouths, and think of a time when it was all much less dangerous. 

They dance around each other quietly, after that. They cook the ravioli in batches, Joe lifting the finished ones from the water and putting them into bowls while Nicky finishes the broth. He tastes for seasoning, adjusts, tastes again. He offers a spoonful to Joe’s lips and smiles properly at his pleased sound in response. They’ve tended to this meal all day, and now, as they finally plate it for dinner, it feels like a task done right. As much good as they put into the world, it’s always messy, but this has been clean. And the first bite is a miracle, one that reminds him of nights curled up against Nicky’s side under the stars in a year centuries before city lights. 

“I am so lucky our paths crossed.”

“I’d consider myself the lucky one.” Nicky hand-feeds him a raviolo, then licks the remnants of its coating off his fingers with a look that says he knows what the sight feels like to Joe. He’s much more openly affectionate, more flirty, without an audience. It’s safety, Joe recognizes, from the time they’ve spent being taught to stay quiet and avoid pain. They heal and come back to life, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Even with Booker, at first, it had been hard. Andy and Quynh understood, with their own intimacy, but Booker had been awful for the first decade or so. He was angry and lonely, and he didn’t understand them. Those hurts have healed, but Nicky is still so careful in his expressions when there’s someone around to hear them. “I wish we could stay here.”

“We can.”

Nicky shakes his head, leaves his smile a little sad. “But not forever, Cuore. You know that. We have a couple weeks, and then we move on until the next time it’s safe. If we were normal, we could do this forever. Move into a home, maybe this one.” He feels the edge of the table under his fingertips, the way he does every time they’re here. “Cook every night, wake up in a real bed every morning. Maybe get jobs. You could sell your art, I could... do something, I don’t know. Make pasta. It would be a lot simpler, I think.” He takes another forkful into his mouth and chews it thoughtfully for a long moment. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be so normal?”

“If we were normal, I wouldn’t have had so much time to spend with you.”

“A fair point.”

They share their food, feeding each other and savoring a flavor developed with as much complexity as their relationship. It’s mixed, as is their language after so long. They slip between them often and easily, sometimes without even realizing it. He can’t know for sure if they’ve kept to one language, barely sure which one it is. Without the others to worry about, they don’t think. They just use the words that are warm and feel like home. Some languages, dead languages, fall from their lips along with flavor combinations that haven’t been built in hundreds of years. It’s this ravioli, he thinks, that reminds him of a long time ago. Most places, most western places, that is, have fallen out of favor with lamb. Their spices are narrowed down and also expanded to things Joe scarcely remembers. Here in Malta, they grow old things and pluck the fresh herbs to make a meal that brings them both home. Even the flour Nicky uses for his pasta is carefully sought after in preparation, from a small village with a name off the map. He holds it in his hands, measuring by his palms as opposed to anything with numbers. It’s too precious to waste, and yet, Nicky will flick some at him playfully whenever they have the opportunity to make this dish. 

“I’m glad for our eternity,” Joe tells him. “A lot of things about our lives are hard. Awful. But I have you, and that’s much more important to me than a normal life. You’re the most important thing I have. You _are_ my life. My heart and soul, my sun and moon, my skies and earth, my hands and feet, my all. I have nothing, if I don’t have you.”

“Such a romantic.”

Nicky leaves his seat in favor of sliding into Joe’s lap as he has a million times before, legs hanging over one side of him, face lowered to press against the opposite shoulder. Joe wraps an arm around him and just holds him. He feeds him from both of their bowls between himself. It’s easy to forget everything else when they’re so close together, but especially with Nicky’s whole body pressed to his. He knows the way Nicky moves his head, shifting until his cheek presses to the center of Joe’s chest. Then he shuts his eyes. He’s listening to the way his heart beats. 

“I’m here, my love.”

“It’s still nice to be sure.”

They stay like that long after the food is gone and the sun sets through their gauzy curtains, until Nicky is half asleep and his lips moving in slow prayers in the primitive genoese Joe stumbled through in the middle ages as a show of his affection. The night is over, but they have tomorrow, and a few nights after that just the same. They’ll cook again, and be safe on their own, and eventually rejoin their family. For now, though, it’s just the two of them, and that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @transnicolo


End file.
